Quote:Baseball's playoffs are infuriating. Too many teams. Terrible way of crowning a champion.

Too many teams?

You must really hate every other major sport then.

Baseball is a whole different ball game. Pitchers. Lineups. Lots of randomness.
There's a much greater chance you'll determine the better team in 7 games of basketball and hockey. You can't play 7 games of football, players wouldn't make it. Home and away for soccer.

Agreed, but I also think the talent gap between the top teams in other sports and in baseball is quite different.

I really don't see a ton of difference between the team with the best record in baseball (Washington) and the playoff team with the least amount of wins (St. Louis).

Not so sure I can say that in other sports (with football perhaps being close).

Screw the Cardinals...I am from now on refering to them like morgs on a date nite as in they are the "Backdoor Men"...backing in to every playoff scenario lately. That infield fly rule was indeed bad and bogues....But Chipper finished his career like a Chumper instead with that crappy error on the potential double play ball that gave the Redbirds 3 runs in that inning. A sad way for Chipper to go out for his career. Hope the Nats sweep the Cardinals...in fact I am sure that will happen...

_________________________
No more .net hate. Just here to share incredible special moments with my Jayhawk brethren.

Sneak in the backdoor team sucka...dont tell you are a damm Redbird fan living in Dallas. If so I sending Josh Hamilton over to your place to smash you over the head with his crack pipe....If it takes the Cardinals plays like that BS infield fly rule to win..they wont go much farther ...in fact I still say the Nationals in 4 games....put up some cash or shut up Doyel..

_________________________
No more .net hate. Just here to share incredible special moments with my Jayhawk brethren.

I really hated the format they went to in the nineties. Too slow of a buildup to the World Series. Aside from contracting teams and getting rid of the DS and WCs altogther and going back to the 1969 system, this is the best option. It really seems to inject some immediate excitement into the playoffs. I don't know why anyone would dislike this system unless it directly hurt his team. It's good entertainment for the general fan.

Quote:I really hated the format they went to in the nineties. Too slow of a buildup to the World Series. Aside from contracting teams and getting rid of the DS and WCs altogther and going back to the 1969 system, this is the best option. It really seems to inject some immediate excitement into the playoffs. I don't know why anyone would dislike this system unless it directly hurt his team. It's good entertainment for the general fan.

Because it's bad for the game. The strength of baseball is the marathon pennant race. Teams fighting all the way to game 162. This throws it out. You had a Braves team that was 6 wins better than the Cardinals in a tougher division (no 100 loss Astros and Cubs to beat up on), won the season series 5-1, but a few fluke defensive plays from the best defensive team in the NL, an awful call, and they're knocked out of the postseason in favor of a team that doesn't deserve to be there. Previous one game playoffs were exciting, because the teams were actually tied. They'd fought at the end of the season, watched the scoreboard and this was the decisive rubber match. The Twins and Tigers or Rockies and Padres had bad blood and actually competed with one another. This one just sticks two teams together because MLB's marketing department thinks it's exciting and they can sell it to TBS for more money. It's a lousy system whether one of your teams is in it or not.

The idea that it was a big driver that was going to make winning the division count was always stupid too and pretty much ignored down the stretch. O's and Yanks didn't exactly go all out to try and snatch the Division crown, and the fans didn't really care, because in or out is always more important than seeding and byes. If you want winning the Division to matter, ditch the Wild Card and go back to the days of 1993, when a 104 win Braves team could snatch the title away from a great 103 win Giants team. Otherwise, just accept that Wild Cards sometimes win in the postseason and stop screwing up your best product, which is the 162 game season.

The question to ask is will the Cardinals' late season magic ever end? Four or five more teams down the stretch implodiing while they feast on the Cubs and the Astros five times a week, then get into the playoffs because of the new stupid wild card rule, then win the game by virtue of a failed double play and a terrible umpire call and teh Braves' inability to get one timely hit, THEN scores two runs by virtue of four walks issued by one of the best pitchers in baseball.

_________________________
I apologize if the above post offended anyone in a wheelchair.

Quote:Baseball's playoffs are infuriating. Too many teams. Terrible way of crowning a champion.

Too many teams?

You must really hate every other major sport then.

My first thought too. But I imagine Fish probably has more to his argument than just sheer number of teams.

Well, those who say that 162 games is plenty to identify the best teams are right. A big baseball playoff is just Baseball's way of imposing "competitive balance"--you'll see how often writers and pundits will talk of parity because of how many different teams have won the World Series in the last twenty years. Which is true. But hey, Butler made a couple Final Fours, and some of the best teams of the last generation of college basketball (2011 Kansas, anyone?) didn't even sniff a trophy.

But where baseball really drives me nuts (and basketball does not) is that, at least with basketball, the game is the same in the regular season as in the postseason. Things that make you successful in January should carry over to March (granted, subject to the vagaries of sample sizes of one).

But baseball...man, you can do an amazing job of roster construction, but it's just a fact that teams with equally-talented (as a whole) pitching rotations can be worlds different in the playoffs; a team with little depth but three top-shelf guys has a decided advantage over a well-balanced but unexciting five.

Throw in the extra rest, minimizing further the importance of pitching depth, and you're left with a game that is fundamentally different from the one we've spent the last six months following. It's like demonstrating you're a great American football team for a season and then playing the playoffs by CFL rules.

Screw the Cardinals...I am from now on refering to them like morgs on a date nite as in they are the "Backdoor Men"...backing in to every playoff scenario lately. That infield fly rule was indeed bad and bogues....But Chipper finished his career like a Chumper instead with that crappy error on the potential double play ball that gave the Redbirds 3 runs in that inning. A sad way for Chipper to go out for his career. Hope the Nats sweep the Cardinals...in fact I am sure that will happen...